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The Zohar teaches that the builders of the city of the Tower of Babel used their knowledge of the Hebrew language in the use or manipulation of divine names to force the ministering angels to aid them in their task of building the city and the tower.

From the teachings of Rabbi Yitzchak Luria; translated and edited by Moshe Yaakov Wisnefsky

G-d set up the workings of the world so that His beneficence flows primarily and directly to the forces of holiness and goodness. Only a residual flow of beneficence reaches the forces of evil - just enough to keep them in existence so that they can fulfill their role.

R. Tzadok says that whenever we stumble in our lives, there was some blessing that was trying to come through in that moment, and for whatever reason we didn’t rise to the occasion. G-d offered us a gift and it slipped through our hands.

The Torah states that during the Flood in the year 600 all of the subterranean waterways burst forth. The Zohar explains this to mean that in the Jewish year 5600 (1830 CE), there will be a great expansion of wisdom in the world. We have seen this evidenced by the explosion of expanding secular knowledge in recent history.